At the end of this MasterClass, I am going to admit something to you that I have never admitted to anyone on Earth. I’m also going to show you an artifact that nobody except me has ever seen. And that is your first lesson in suspense. Dan Brown, MasterClass Chapter...
So you want to publish your novel. You probably know about the traditional and self-publishing routes, but there is another option you may not have heard of before. It’s called hybrid publishing, and it is filled with its own potential and peril.
Creativity is one of the essential things about being human. So you don't have to apologize for it. It's something human beings do. Margaret Atwood, MasterClass Chapter 1: Introduction As soon as I finished Neil Gaiman’s MasterClass I dove straight into Margaret...
I once heard that Tolkien hated teaching so much that he would lecture at the volume of a whisper to frustrate his students into never taking his classes. The students that were determined to learn from the master storyteller pulled their desks all the way up to his lectern and listened closely, forcing him to impart his knowledge. When it comes to teaching, Neil Gaiman is the polar opposite of Tolkein.
Stories influence readers, for better or worse. How should authors and other storytellers approach creating stories responsibly?
What should you, the author, do if you disagree with your editor? Yes, in an ideal world the editor would always perfectly understand the author’s vision and the author would always perfectly understand the editor’s comments. But some edits are subjective enough to...
The vast majority of editors today work on-screen rather than on-paper. It’s faster, cleaner, and less prone to error. No one wants to manually type hundreds of hand-written corrections onto the final manuscript. With the advent of computers, that tedious job no...
It may surprise you that there are four different levels of editing. You may have heard the terms proofreader, copy editor, and line editor floating around, but let’s be honest, none of these terms sound very distinct. Once upon a time I too thought they all meant...